1. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?

2. Photoshop
Technology feature How to use it
• Cropping • Cropping is simply the process of removing part
of a photo you don’t want in order to highlight a
specific part or take a piece of the photo out.
• Magic wand • The magic wand tool helps take the backgrounds
out of photos. To use this you click on the
background of the photo and the magic wand
should highlight it and then you click delete. If the
photos has many different colors blended with
the background this can become difficult but
lowering the tolerance of the magic wand should
fix this.
• Layering • Layering helps you select whether some photos
and text go behind or in front of one another.
This can also helps navigate your photos and text
because you can name layers and organize them
accordingly. It can also help put backgrounds in.
• renaming your layers • To do this you click on the layer name and the text
should highlight allowing you to change the name
of the text.
• Importing photos • To import a photo you simply go to ‘image’ and
click ‘open’ and then select the image you wish to
import.
• Blending options • Blending options let you put effects on text and
images within your layers like drop shadows and
outer glow. To do this you have to right click on the
chose layer and click blending options. A pop up
should open full of effects you can use.

3. Mac desktop
All of my work was done using a Mac computer so I had to learn how to
navigate around the desktop as this was new to me. I first had to familiarize
myself with the tool bar at the bottom so that I knew where to find programs
such as Photoshop and safari which were both programs I used to make my
finished product. I also had to get used to saving documents to my desktop
for ease of access. This really helped me a lot as I didn’t have to mess a round
searching for work because it was all on my desktop. The options bar at the
top was also new to me so I had to familiarize myself with this concept as it
changes everytime I open new program to fit that program. Finder was also
new to me but once I learnt have to use it I found it easier navigating work
that was saved on the Mac I used.

4. Garage band
Garage band was fairly easy for me to learn but I specifically used it to podcast for my
evaluation questions. I learnt how to record a podcast and edit them in terms of cutting
parts out and moving parts around. I also learnt how to use pictures in my podcasts to
help illustrate my points. This was an unfamiliar concept to me as I was used to using
audacity on Windows operating systems and with this you cannot use photos but I learnt
this concept fairly quickly. Moving tracks and adding tracks also came quite naturally to
me.
Here is a sample from one of my evaluation questions to illustrate my knowledge of
garage band.

5. Social media
The main social media I used was YouTube. I used this so that I could view videos on
how to take certain photos and how to improve my editing skills. Also to view other
peoples pieces of work so I can see where mine is similar, worse or better. I did this
mainly to see where I could improve my work so that I can get the best out my
magazine. I have also incorporated Facebook and Twitter into my finished product to
show that I have used a convention of some music magazines by using social media to
display the different media platforms my magazine spreads across.

6. Slide share and presentations
I used slide share in order for me to upload my presentations of my evaluation
questions. Slide share is a simple website to use. I had to first create my user account
in order for uploading to take place. I then had to create my presentation was easy as I
have prior experience on power point on Windows desktops and once this was done I
only had to log in to slide share and click upload then find my presentation and click
upload. Simple as that.

7. IMovie
I used IMovie in order to have one of my evaluation questions on video. Firstly I had to
record my video using photo booth and then import it into IMovie. From there I created
some quick transitions with the question number and name and then followed up with
my video answering the question. IMovie however does have more features than this
such as altering video clips that are imported which I personally did not do with mine.
You can also insert text, images, videos and sound and not only videos.
Here is an example of my IMovie clip where you can see I’ve inserted text and
incorporated transitions before inserting my pre recorded clip. You can however record
through IMovie if you so wish to.

8. blogger
In order for me to upload posts on my planning and show my progress throughout the
year I had to make use of blogger. Blogger allows you post blogs which are available for
public viewing if you want them to be and this is how my teacher and examiners can view
the progress I have made. Firstly I had to sign up to blogger but I already had a Google
account sop this was straight forward for me. Once logged in you can upload blogs by
clicking on the little pencil icon and from there you create the body of your blog including
the name, text and possibly images and videos. You can also create draft blogs if you
would like to save a blog and come back to it. It is also possible to alter the dates on blogs.

9. Green screen
Thankfully in the photo taking process I had access to a green screen because it made
editing the photos I took 10 times simpler and therefore making my images look more
professional. The green screen is simply what it says on the tin it’s a big green screen
that you get the subject of your photo to stand in front of when taking a photo. This is
done because the green distinguishes colors better so that the magic wand tool can be
used a lot more effectively. This helped the editing process a lot and made my pictures
look so much better.
Here is my contents page photo before editing.